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We place novel constraints on the cosmokinetic parameters by using a joint analysis of the newest Very Large Telescope (VLT)-K-band Multi Object Spectrograph (KMOS) HII galaxies (HIIG) with the Type Ia Supernovae (SNIa) Pantheon sample. We combine the latter data sets in order to reconstruct, in a model-independent way, the Hubble diagram to as high redshifts as possible. Using a Gaussian process, we derive the basic cosmokinetic parameters and compare them with those of Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM). In the case of SNIa, we find that the extracted values of the cosmokinetic parameters are in agreement with the predictions of ΛCDM model. Combining SNIa with high-redshift tracers of the Hubble relation, namely HIIG data, we obtain consistent results with those based on ΛCDM as far as the present values of the cosmokinetic parameters are concerned, but find significant deviations in the evolution of the cosmokinetic parameters with respect to the expectations of the concordance ΛCDM model.

Asteroid (99942) Apophis is a potentially hazardous asteroid. The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) recently proposed a rendezvous mission with Apophis, with a planned asteroid observation campaign to help determine the mission strategy in advance. In this study, we performed multicolor photometric observations of Apophis using the 1.0 m telescope at Kawabe Cosmic Park on 2021 March 10. The visible colors (g′, r′, and i′) of Apophis were obtained. The average colors of Apophis during our observations were as follows: g′ − r′ = 0.618 ± 0.021 and r′ − i′ = 0.180 ± 0.021. No significant color variation was observed in r′ − i′, but a slight variation may have occurred in g′ − r′ during the observation period of 4.63 hr. The obtained colors appeared to match those of an Sq-class asteroid, which is the asteroid type previously determined for Apophis by Binzel et al. (2009, Icarus, 200, 480) using the visible to near-infrared (0.55–2.45 μm) reflectance spectrum.

Precision calibration poses challenges to experiments probing the redshifted 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization (z~30-6). In both interferometric and global signal experiments, systematic calibration is the leading source of error. Though many aspects of calibration have been studied, the overlap between the two types of instruments has received less attention. We investigate the sky based calibration of total power measurements with a HERA dish and an EDGES style antenna to understand the role of auto-correlations in the calibration of an interferometer and the role of sky in calibrating a total power instrument. Using simulations we study various scenarios such as time variable gain, incomplete sky calibration model, and primary beam model. We find that temporal gain drifts, sky model incompleteness, and beam inaccuracies cause biases in the receiver gain amplitude and the receiver temperature estimates. In some cases, these biases mix spectral structure between beam and sky resulting in spectrally variable gain errors. Applying the calibration method to the HERA and EDGES data, we find good agreement with calibration via the more standard methods. Although instrumental gains are consistent with beam and sky errors similar in scale to those simulated, the receiver temperatures show significant deviations from expected values. While we show that it is possible to partially mitigate biases due to model inaccuracies by incorporating a time-dependent gain model in calibration, the resulting errors on calibration products are larger and more correlated. Completely addressing these biases will require more accurate sky and primary beam models., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in MNRAS main journal

Analyses of large-scale cancer sequencing data have revealed that mutagenic processes can create distinctive patterns of base substitutions, called mutational signatures. Interestingly, mutational patterns resembling some of these signatures can also be observed in normal cells. To determine whether similar patterns exist more generally, we analyzed large data sets of genetic variation, including mutations from 7 model species and single nucleotide polymorphisms in 42 species, totaling >1.9 billion variants. We found that base substitution patterns for most species closely match single base substitution (SBS) mutational signature 5 in the Catalog of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) database. SBS5 is ubiquitous in cancers and also present in normal human cells, suggesting that similar patterns of genetic variation across so many species are likely due to conserved biochemistry. We investigated the mechanistic origins of the SBS5-like mutational pattern in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and show that translesion DNA synthesis and sugar metabolism are directly linked to this form of mutagenesis. We propose that conserved metabolic processes in cells are coupled to continuous generation of genetic variants, which can be acted upon by selection to drive the evolution of biological entities.

The dispersion measure (DM) of fast radio bursts (FRBs) provides a unique way to probe ionised baryons in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Cosmological models with different parameters lead to different DM-redshift ($\mathrm{DM}-z$) relations. Additionally, the over/under-dense regions in the IGM and the circumgalactic medium of intervening galaxies lead to scatter around the mean $\mathrm{DM}-z$ relations. We have used the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) simulations to measure the mean $\mathrm{DM}-z$ relation and the scatter around it using over one billion lines-of-sight between redshifts $0, Comment: Submitted to MNRAS. 14 pages, 15 figures, Comments Welcome. Data and model will be released upon being accepted

The subject of this paper is to build a physical model describing shape and size correlations of galaxies due to weak gravitational lensing and due to direct tidal interaction of elliptical galaxies with gravitational fields sourced by the cosmic large-scale structure. Setting up a linear intrinsic alignment model for elliptical galaxies which parameterises the reaction of the galaxy to an external tidal shear field is controlled by the velocity dispersion, we predict intrinsic correlations and cross-correlations with weak lensing for both shapes and sizes, juxtaposing both types of spectra with lensing. We quantify the observability of the intrinsic shape and size correlations and estimate with the Fisher-formalism how well the alignment parameter can be determined from the Euclid weak lensing survey. Specifically, we find a contamination of the weak lensing convergence spectra with an intrinsic size correlation amounting to up to 10% over a wide multipole range $\ell=100\ldots300$, with a corresponding cross-correlation exhibiting a sign change, similar to the cross-correlation between weak lensing shear and intrinsic shapes. A determination of the alignment parameter yields a precision of a few percent forecasted for Euclid, and we show that all shape and many size correlations should be measurable with Euclid., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures

We present the main sequence for all galaxies and star-forming galaxies for a sample of 28,469 massive ($M_\star \ge 10^{11}$M$_\odot$) galaxies at cosmic noon ($1.5 < z < 3.0$), uniformly selected from a 17.5 deg$^2$ area (0.33 Gpc$^3$ comoving volume at these redshifts). Our large sample allows for a novel approach to investigating the galaxy main sequence that has not been accessible to previous studies. We measure the main sequence in small mass bins in the SFR-M$_{\star}$ plane without assuming a functional form for the main sequence. With a large sample of galaxies in each mass bin, we isolate star-forming galaxies by locating the transition between the star-forming and green valley populations in the SFR-M$_{\star}$ plane. This approach eliminates the need for arbitrarily defined fixed cutoffs when isolating the star-forming galaxy population, which often biases measurements of the scatter around the star-forming galaxy main sequence. We find that the main sequence for all galaxies becomes increasingly flat towards present day at the high-mass end, while the star-forming galaxy main sequence does not. We attribute this difference to the increasing fraction of the collective green valley and quiescent galaxy population from $z=3.0$ to $z=1.5$. Additionally, we measure the total scatter around the star-forming galaxy main sequence and find that it is $\sim0.5-1.0$ dex with little evolution as a function of mass or redshift. We discuss the implications that these results have for pinpointing the physical processes driving massive galaxy evolution., 16 pages, 10 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present catalogues of stellar masses, star formation rates, and ancillary stellar population parameters for galaxies spanning $02.6$, we see evidence of a bend in the relation at low redshifts ($z, Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 28 pages, 20 figures

Statistical methods are frequently built upon assumptions that limit their applicability to certain problems and conditions. Failure to recognize these limitations can lead to conclusions that may be inaccurate or biased. An example of such methods is the non-parametric Efron–Petrosian test statistic used in the studies of truncated data. We argue and show how the inappropriate use of this statistical method can lead to biased conclusions when the assumptions under which the method is valid do not hold. We do so by reinvestigating the evidence recently provided by multiple independent reports on the evolution of the luminosity/energetics distribution of cosmological Long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (LGRBs) with redshift. We show that the effects of detection threshold have been likely significantly underestimated in the majority of previous studies. This underestimation of detection threshold leads to severely incomplete LGRB samples that exhibit strong apparent luminosity-redshift or energetics-redshift correlations. We further confirm our findings by performing extensive Monte Carlo simulations of the cosmic rates and the luminosity/energy distributions of LGRBs and their detection process.

The subject of this paper is a quantification of the information content of cosmological probes of the large-scale structures, specifically of temperature and polarization anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), CMB-lensing, weak cosmic shear and galaxy clustering, in terms of information theory measures like entropies. We aim to establish relationships between conventional measures of statistical uncertainties and information entropies for Gaussian likelihoods, which are described by the Fisher-formalism. Furthermore, we extend these studies to the computation of (Bayesian) evidences and the power of measurement to distinguish between competing models. We investigate in detail how cosmological data decrease information entropy by reducing statistical errors and by breaking degeneracies. In addition, we work out how tensions between data sets increase information entropy and quantify this effect in three examples: the discrepancy in Ωm and σ8 between the CMB and weak lensing, the role of intrinsic alignments in weak lensing data when attempting the dark energy equation of state parameters, and the famous H0-tension between Cepheids in the Hubble keystone project and the CMB as observed by Planck.

We present measurements of the intensity of the Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB) with the NuSTAR telescope in the 3-20 keV energy range. Our method uses spatial modulation of the CXB signal on the NuSTAR detectors through the telescope's side aperture. Based on the NuSTAR observations of selected extragalactic fields with a total exposure of 7 Ms, we have estimated the CXB 3-20 keV flux to be 2.8E-11 erg/s/cm^2/deg^2, which is ~8 higher than measured with HEAO-1 and consistent with the INTEGRAL measurement. The inferred CXB spectral shape in the 3-20 keV energy band is consistent with the canonical model of Gruber et al. We demonstrate that the spatially modulated CXB signal measured by NuSTAR is not contaminated by systematic noise and is limited by photon statistics. The measured relative scatter of the CXB intensity between different sky directions is compatible with cosmic variance, which opens new possibilities for studying CXB anisotropy over the whole sky with NuSTAR., Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables; Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The redshifted 21-cm signal of neutral Hydrogen is a promising probe into the period of evolution of our Universe when the first stars were formed (Cosmic Dawn), to the period where the entire Universe changed its state from being completely neutral to completely ionized (Reionization). The most striking feature of this line of neutral Hydrogen is that it can be observed across an entire frequency range as a sky-averaged continuous signature, or its fluctuations can be measured using an interferometer. However, the 21-cm signal is very faint and is dominated by a much brighter Galactic and extra-galactic foregrounds, making it an observational challenge. We have used different physical models to simulate various realizations of the 21-cm Global signals, including an excess radio background to match the amplitude of the EDGES 21-cm signal. First, we have used an artificial neural network (ANN) to extract the astrophysical parameters from these simulated datasets. Then, mock observations were generated by adding a physically motivated foreground model and an ANN was used to extract the astrophysical parameters from such data. The $R^2$ score of our predictions from the mock-observations is in the range of 0.65-0.89. We have used this ANN to predict the signal parameters giving the EDGES data as the input. We find that the reconstructed signal closely mimics the amplitude of the reported detection. The recovered parameters can be used to infer the physical state of the gas at high redshifts., Submitted to MNRAS

To understand the cosmic accretion history of supermassive black holes, separating the radiation from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and star-forming galaxies (SFGs) is critical. However, a reliable solution on photometrically recognising AGNs still remains unsolved. In this work, we present a novel AGN recognition method based on Deep Neural Network (Neural Net; NN). The main goals of this work are (i) to test if the AGN recognition problem in the North Ecliptic Pole Wide (NEPW) field could be solved by NN; (ii) to shows that NN exhibits an improvement in the performance compared with the traditional, standard spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting method in our testing samples; and (iii) to publicly release a reliable AGN/SFG catalogue to the astronomical community using the best available NEPW data, and propose a better method that helps future researchers plan an advanced NEPW database. Finally, according to our experimental result, the NN recognition accuracy is around 80.29% - 85.15%, with AGN completeness around 85.42% - 88.53% and SFG completeness around 81.17% - 85.09%., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures

A number of independent observations suggest that the intergalactic medium was significantly neutral at $z=7$ and that reionization was, perhaps, still in progress at $z=5.7$. The narrowband survey, SILVERRUSH, has mapped over $2,000$ Lyman-$\alpha$ emitters (LAEs) at these redshifts. Previous analyses have assumed that reionization was over by $z=5.7$, but this data may actually sample the final stages of reionization when the last neutral islands were relegated to the cosmic voids. Motivated by these developments, we reexamine LAE void and peak statistics and their ability to constrain reionization. We construct models of the LAE distribution in (1 Gpc$/h$)$^3$ volumes, spanning a range of neutral fractions at $z=5.7$ and 6.6. Models with a higher neutral fraction show an enhanced probability of finding holes in the LAE distribution. When comparing models at fixed mean surface density, however, LAEs obscured by neutral gas in the voids must be compensated by visible LAEs elsewhere. Hence, in these models the likelihood of finding an over-dense peak is also enhanced in the latter half of reionization. Compared to the widely used angular two-point correlation function (2PCF), we find that the void probability function (VPF) provides a more sensitive test of models during the latter half of reionization. By comparison, at neutral fractions $\sim 50\%$, the VPF and a simple peak thresholding statistic are both similar to the 2PCF in constraining power. Lastly, we find that the cosmic variance and large-scale asymmetries observed in the SILVERRUSH fields are consistent with large-scale structure in a $\Lambda$CDM universe., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRAS

The global 21-cm signal from the cosmic dawn is affected by a variety of heating and cooling processes. We investigate the impact of heating due to Ly α photons on the global 21-cm signal at cosmic dawn using an analytical expression of the spectrum around the Ly α resonance based on the so-called ‘wing approximation’. We derive a new expression for the scattering correction and for the first time give a simple close-form expression for the cooling due to injected Ly α photons. We perform a short parameter study by varying the Ly α background intensity by four orders of magnitude and establish that a strong Ly α background is necessary, although not sufficient, in order to reproduce the recently detected stronger-than-expected 21-cm signal by the Experiment to Detect the Global EoR Signal (EDGES) Collaboration. We show that the magnitude of this Ly α heating is smaller than previously estimated in the literature by two orders of magnitude or more. As a result, even a strong Ly α background is consistent with the EDGES measurement. We also provide a detailed discussion on different expressions of the Ly α heating rate used in the literature.

We analyse the results of an Eulerian AMR cosmological simulation in order to quantify the mass growth of galaxy clusters, exploring the differences between dark matter and baryons. We have determined the mass assembly histories (MAHs) of each of the mass components and computed several proxies for the instantaneous mass accretion rate (MAR). The mass growth of both components is clearly dominated by the contribution of major mergers, but high MARs can also occur during smooth accretion periods. We explored the correlations between MARs, merger events and clusters' environments, finding the mean densities in $1 \leq r/R_{200m} \leq 1.5$ to correlate strongly with $\Gamma_{200m}$ in massive clusters which undergo major mergers through their MAH. From the study of the dark matter velocity profiles, we find a strong anticorrelation between the MAR proxies $\Gamma_{200m}$ and $\alpha_{200m}$. Last, we present a novel approach to study the angularly-resolved distribution of gas accretion flows in simulations, which allows to extract and interpret the main contributions to the accretion picture and to assess systematic differences between the thermodynamical properties of each of these contributions using multipolar analysis. We have preliminarily applied the method to the best numerically-resolved cluster in our simulation. Amongst the most remarkable results, we find that the gas infalling through the cosmic filaments has systematically lower entropy compared to the isotropic component, but we do not find a clear distinction in temperature., Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS

Aiming to fill a crucial gap in our observational knowledge of the early Universe, experiments around the world continue to attempt to verify the claimed detection of the redshifted 21-cm signal from Cosmic Dawn by the EDGES experiment. This sky-averaged or 'global' signal from neutral hydrogen should be detectable at low radio frequencies (50-200 MHz), but is difficult to measure due to bright foreground emission and difficulties in reaching the required levels of instrumental-calibration precision. In this paper we outline our progress toward using a novel new method to measure the global redshifted 21-cm signal. Motivated by the need to use alternative methods with very different systematic errors to EDGES for an independent result, we employ an array of closely-spaced antennas to measure the global sky signal interferometrically, rather than using the conventional approach with a single antenna. We use simulations to demonstrate our newly-developed methods and show that, for an idealised instrument, a 21-cm signal could theoretically be extracted from the visibilities of an array of closely-spaced dipoles. We verify that our signal-extraction methods work on real data using observations made with a Square Kilometre-Array-like prototype; the Engineering Development Array-2. Finally, we use the lessons learned in both our simulations and observations to lay out a clear plan for future work, which will ultimately lead to a new global redshifted 21-cm instrument: the All-Sky SignAl Short-Spacing INterferometer (ASSASSIN)., 18 pages, 13 figures

Gamma-ray burst (GRB) data suggest that the jets from GRBs in the high redshift universe are more narrowly collimated than those at lower redshifts. This implies that we detect relatively fewer long GRB progenitor systems (i.e. massive stars) at high redshifts, because a greater fraction of GRBs have their jets pointed away from us. As a result, estimates of the star formation rate (from the GRB rate) at high redshifts may be diminished if this effect is not taken into account. In this paper, we estimate the star formation rate (SFR) using the observed GRB rate, accounting for an evolving jet opening angle. We find that the SFR in the early universe (z > 3) can be up to an order of magnitude higher than the canonical estimates, depending on the severity of beaming angle evolution and the fraction of stars that make long gamma-ray bursts. Additionally, we find an excess in the SFR at low redshifts, although this lessens when accounting for evolution of the beaming angle. Finally, under the assumption that GRBs do in fact trace canonical forms of the cosmic SFR, we constrain the resulting fraction of stars that must produce GRBs, again accounting for jet beaming-angle evolution. We find this assumption suggests a high fraction of stars in the early universe producing GRBs - a result that may, in fact, support our initial assertion that GRBs do not trace canonical estimates of the SFR., Final version accepted to MNRAS

To effectively exploit large-scale structure surveys, we depend on accurate and reliable predictions of non-linear cosmological structure formation. Tools for efficient and comprehensive computational modelling are therefore essential to perform cosmological parameter inference analyses. We present the public software package ReACT, demonstrating its capability for the fast and accurate calculation of non-linear power spectra from non-standard physics. We showcase ReACT through a series of analyses on the DGP and $f(R)$ gravity models, adopting LSST-like cosmic shear power spectra. Accurate non-linear modelling with ReACT has the potential to more than double LSST's constraining power on the $f(R)$ parameter, in contrast to an analysis that is limited to the quasi-linear regime. We find that ReACT is sufficiently robust for the inference of consistent constraints on theories beyond $\Lambda$CDM for current and ongoing surveys. With further improvement, particularly in terms of the accuracy of the non-linear $\Lambda$CDM power spectrum, ReACT can, in principle, meet the accuracy requirements for future surveys such as Euclid and LSST., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS accepted version. ReACT code available here: https://github.com/nebblu/ReACT

We introduce a versatile and spatially resolved morphological characterisation of binary fields, rooted in the opening transform of mathematical morphology. We subsequently apply it to the thresholded ionization field in simulations of cosmic reionization and study the morphology of ionized regions. We find that an ionized volume element typically resides in an ionized region with radius $\sim8\,h^{-1}\mathrm{cMpc}$ at the midpoint of reionization ($z\approx7.5$) and follow the bubble size distribution even beyond the overlap phase. We find that percolation of the fully ionized component sets in when 25% of the universe is ionized and that the resulting infinite cluster incorporates all ionized regions above $\sim8\,h^{-1}\mathrm{cMpc}$. We also quantify the clustering of ionized regions of varying radius with respect to matter and on small scales detect the formation of superbubbles in the overlap phase. On large scales we quantify the bias values of the centres of ionized and neutral regions of different sizes and not only show that the largest ones at the high-point of reionization can reach $b\approx 30$, but also that early small ionized regions are positively correlated with matter and large neutral regions and late small ionized regions are heavily anti-biased with respect to matter, down to $b\lesssim-20$., 18 pages, 15 figure, as accepted for publication by MNRAS

We investigate the relation between AGN and star formation (SF) activity at $0.5 < z < 3$ by analyzing 898 galaxies with X-ray luminous AGN ($L_X > 10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$) and a large comparison sample of $\sim 320,000$ galaxies without X-ray luminous AGN. Our samples are selected from a large (11.8 deg$^2$) area in Stripe 82 that has multi-wavelength (X-ray to far-IR) data. The enormous comoving volume ($\sim 0.3$ Gpc$^3$) at $0.5 < z < 3$ minimizes the effects of cosmic variance and captures a large number of massive galaxies ($\sim 30,000$ galaxies with $M_* > 10^{11} \ M_{\odot}$) and X-ray luminous AGN. While many galaxy studies discard AGN hosts, we fit the SED of galaxies with and without X-ray luminous AGN with Code Investigating GALaxy Emission (CIGALE) and include AGN emission templates. We find that without this inclusion, stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) in AGN host galaxies can be overestimated, on average, by factors of up to $\sim 5$ and $\sim 10$, respectively. The average SFR of galaxies with X-ray luminous AGN is higher by a factor of $\sim 3$ to $10$ compared to galaxies without X-ray luminous AGN at fixed stellar mass and redshift, suggesting that high SFRs and high AGN X-ray luminosities may be fueled by common mechanisms. The vast majority ($> 95 \%$) of galaxies with X-ray luminous AGN at $z=0.5-3$ do not show quenched SF: this suggests that if AGN feedback quenches SF, the associated quenching process takes a significant time to act and the quenched phase sets in after the highly luminous phases of AGN activity., 27 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The distance-duality relation (DDR) between the luminosity distance $D_L$ and the angular diameter distance $D_A$ is viewed as a powerful tool for testing for the opacity of the Universe, being independent of any cosmological model. It was applied by many authors, who mostly confirm its validity and report a negligible opacity of the Universe. Nevertheless, a thorough analysis reveals that applying the DDR in cosmic opacity tests is tricky. Its applicability is strongly limited because of a non-unique interpretation of the $D_L$ data in terms of cosmic opacity and a rather low accuracy and deficient extent of currently available $D_A$ data. Moreover, authors usually assume that cosmic opacity is frequency independent and parametrize it in their tests by a prescribed phenomenological function. In this way, they only prove that cosmic opacity does not follow their assumptions. As a consequence, no convincing evidence of transparency of the universe using the DDR has so far been presented., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) can be a promising tracer of cosmic star-formation rate history (CSFRH). In order to reveal the CSFRH using GRBs, it is important to understand whether they are biased tracers or not. For this purpose, it is crucial to understand properties of GRB host galaxies, in comparison to field galaxies. In this work, we report ALMA far-infrared (FIR) observations of six $z\sim2$ IR-bright GRB host galaxies, which are selected for the brightness in IR. Among them, four host galaxies are detected for the first time in the rest-frame FIR. In addition to the ALMA data, we collected multi-wavelength data from previous studies for the six GRB host galaxies. Spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting analyses were performed with \texttt{CIGALE} to investigate physical properties of the host galaxies, and to test whether active galactic nucleus (AGN) and radio components are required or not. Our results indicate that the best-fit templates of five GRB host galaxies do not require an AGN component, suggesting the absence of AGNs. One GRB host galaxy, 080207, shows a very small AGN contribution. While derived stellar masses of the three host galaxies are mostly consistent with those in previous studies, interestingly the value of star-formation rates (SFRs) of all six GRB hosts are inconsistent with previous studies. Our results indicate the importance of rest-frame FIR observations to correctly estimate SFRs by covering thermal emission from cold dust heated by star formation., Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication in MNRAS

The cosmic curvature, a fundamental parameter for cosmology could hold deep clues to inflation and cosmic origins. We propose an improved model-independent method to constrain the cosmic curvature by combining the constructed Hubble diagram of high-redshift quasars with galactic-scale strong lensing systems expected to be seen by the forthcoming LSST survey. More specifically, the most recent quasar data are used as a new type of standard candles in the range $0.036, Comment: 7 figures, 11 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen is a sensitive probe of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) and Cosmic Dawn. Currently operating radio telescopes have ushered in a data-driven era of 21-cm cosmology, providing the first constraints on the astrophysical properties of sources that drive this signal. However, extracting astrophysical information from the data is highly non-trivial and requires the rapid generation of theoretical templates over a wide range of astrophysical parameters. To this end emulators are often employed, with previous efforts focused on predicting the power spectrum. In this work we introduce 21cmGEM - the first emulator of the global 21-cm signal from Cosmic Dawn and the EoR. The smoothness of the output signal is guaranteed by design. We train neural networks to predict the cosmological signal using a database of ~30,000 simulated signals which were created by varying seven astrophysical parameters: the star formation efficiency and the minimal mass of star-forming halos; the efficiency of the first X-ray sources and their spectrum parameterized by spectral index and the low energy cutoff; the mean free path of ionizing photons and the CMB optical depth. We test the performance with a set of ~2,000 simulated signals, showing that the relative error in the prediction has an r.m.s. of 0.0159. The algorithm is efficient, with a running time per parameter set of 0.16 sec. Finally, we use the database of models to check the robustness of relations between the features of the global signal and the astrophysical parameters that we previously reported., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Historically, GHz radio emission has been used extensively to characterize the star-formation activity in galaxies. In this work, we look for empirical relationships amongst the radio luminosity, the infrared luminosity, and the CO-based molecular gas mass. We assemble a sample of 278 nearby galaxies with measurements of radio continuum and total infrared emission, and the 12CO J = 1–0 emission line. We find a correlation between the radio continuum and the CO emission line (with a scatter of 0.36 dex), in a large sample of different kinds of galaxies. Making use of this correlation, we explore the evolution of the molecular gas mass function and the cosmological molecular gas mass density in six redshift bins up to z = 1.5. These results agree with previous semi-analytic predictions and direct measurements: the cosmic molecular gas density increases up to z = 1.5. In addition, we find a single plane across five orders of magnitude for the explored luminosities, with a scatter of 0.27 dex. These correlations are sufficiently robust to be used for samples where no CO measurements exist.

To reach the full potential for the next generation of weak lensing surveys, it is necessary to mitigate the contamination of intrinsic alignments (IA) of galaxies in the observed cosmic shear signal. The self calibration (SC) of intrinsic alignments provides an independent method to measure the IA signal from the survey data and the photometric redshift information. It operates differently from the marginalization method based on IA modeling. In this work, we present the first application of SC to the KiDS450 data and the KV450 data, to split directly the intrinsic shape - galaxy density (Ig) correlation signal and the gravitational shear - galaxy density (Gg) correlation signal, using the information from photometric redshift (photo-z). We achieved a clear separation of the two signals and performed several validation tests. Our measured signals are found to be in general agreement with the KiDS450 cosmic shear best-fit cosmology, for both lensing and IA measurements. For KV450, we use partial (high-z) data, and our lensing measurements are also in good agreement with KV450 cosmic shear best-fit, however, our IA signal suggests a larger IA amplitude. We discussed the impact of photo-z quality on IA detection and several other potential systematic biases. Finally, we discuss the potential application of the information extracted for both the lensing signal and the IA signal in future surveys., Comment: revision, 15 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Little is known about the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) in galaxies at cosmic dawn. Studying the first appearance of the MZR is one of the keys to understanding the formation and evolution of the first galaxies. In order to lay the groundwork for upcoming observational campaigns, we analyze 290 galaxies in halos spanning Mh = 10^9-10^11 Msun selected from the FirstLight (FL) cosmological zoom simulations to predict the MZR at z=5-8. Over this interval, the metallicity of FL galaxies with stellar mass Ms= 10^8 Msun declines by < 0.2 dex. This contrasts with the observed tendency for metallicities to increase at lower redshifts, and reflects weakly-evolving or even increasing gas fractions. We assess the use of the R3 strong-line diagnostic as a metallicity indicator, finding that it is informative for 12+log(O/H) < 8 but saturates to R3=3 at higher metallicities owing to a cancellation between enrichment and spectral softening. Nonetheless, campaigns with JWST should be able to detect a clear trend between R3 and stellar mass for Ms > 10^7.5 Msun. We caution that, at fixed metallicity, galaxies with higher specific star formation show higher R3 owing to their more intense radiation fields, indicating a potential for selection biases., 6 pages, 4 figures, resubmitted to MNRAS. More discussion added, conclusions unchanged

By utilizing large-scale graph analytic tools implemented in the modern Big Data platform, Apache Spark, we investigate the topological structure of gravitational clustering in five different universes produced by cosmological $N$-body simulations with varying parameters: (1) a WMAP 5-year compatible $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, (2) two different dark energy equation of state variants, and (3) two different cosmic matter density variants. For the Big Data calculations, we use a custom build of stand-alone Spark/Hadoop cluster at Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) and Dataproc Compute Engine in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) with the sample size ranging from 7 millions to 200 millions. We find that among the many possible graph-topological measures, three simple ones: (1) the average of number of neighbors (the so-called average vertex degree) $\alpha$, (2) closed-to-connected triple fraction (the so-called transitivity) $\tau_\Delta$, and (3) the cumulative number density $n_{s\ge5}$ of subcomponents with connected component size $s \ge 5$, can effectively discriminate among the five model universes. Since these graph-topological measures are in direct relation with the usual $n$-points correlation functions of the cosmic density field, graph-topological statistics powered by Big Data computational infrastructure opens a new, intuitive, and computationally efficient window into the dark Universe., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRAS

We present a comparative analysis of the properties of AGN emitting at radio and X-ray wavelengths. The study is performed on 907 X-ray AGN and 100 radio AGN selected on the CDFS and UDS fields and makes use of new and ancillary data available to the VANDELS collaboration. Our results indicate that the mass of the host galaxy is a fundamental quantity which determines the level of AGN activity at the various wavelengths. Indeed large stellar masses are found to be connected with AGN radio emission, as virtually all radio-active AGN reside within galaxies of M*>10^{10} Msun. Large stellar masses also seem to favour AGN activity in the X-ray, even though X-ray AGN present a mass distribution which is more spread out and with a non-negligible tail at M*, 18 pages, 18 figures, to appear on MNRAS

The key challenge in the observation of the redshifted 21-cm signal from cosmic reionization is its separation from the much brighter foreground emission. Such separation relies on the different spectral properties of the two components, although, in real life, the foreground intrinsic spectrum is often corrupted by the instrumental response, inducing systematic effects that can further jeopardize the measurement of the 21-cm signal. In this paper, we use Gaussian Process Regression to model both foreground emission and instrumental systematics in $\sim 2$ hours of data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array. We find that a simple co-variance model with three components matches the data well, giving a residual power spectrum with white noise properties. These consist of an "intrinsic" and instrumentally corrupted component with a coherence-scale of 20 MHz and 2.4 MHz respectively (dominating the line of sight power spectrum over scales $k_{\parallel} \le 0.2$ h cMpc$^{-1}$) and a baseline dependent periodic signal with a period of $\sim 1$ MHz (dominating over $k_{\parallel} \sim 0.4 - 0.8$h cMpc$^{-1}$) which should be distinguishable from the 21-cm EoR signal whose typical coherence-scales is $\sim 0.8$ MHz., 15 pages, 15 figures, 1 table, Accepted to MNRAS

Aims Currently, evidence is inadequate to inform the selection of optimal treatment for patients with colorectal cancer and synchronous liver-limited hepatic metastases. Options include synchronous or staged surgery integrated with systemic chemotherapy. CoSMIC is the first inception cohort study to follow patients from point of presentation in order to identify factors influencing treatment and outcome. Methods Patients were identified at presentation to the regional liver metastases MDT at Manchester Royal Infirmary between April 2015-2018. Data were collected on demographics, intervention and outcome. The study was approved by Regional Ethics Committee (REC reference: 14/NW/1397). Results Of 125 patients recruited, 109 underwent surgery with 18 (17%) liver-first, 75 (69%) bowel-first and 16 (14%) undergoing synchronous resection. There were no differences in baseline demographics or co-morbidity. Eighty-eight completed the intended surgical pathway, with highest failure in liver-first patients where 39% did not proceed to subsequent bowel resection. Critical care occupancy between staged and synchronous resections (5.6 versus 5.2 days; P = 0.92), and inpatient stay (16.5 versus 16.8 days; P = 0.92) was not significant. There was no 30-day mortality. Cox regression analysis identified surgical sequence as a significant covariate (Х2= 31.3; P Conclusions CoSMIC is the first prospective inception cohort study of colorectal cancer and synchronous liver-limited metastasis. The study population is small and from a single centre and thus could be influenced by recruitment and sample bias. However, the important novel finding is that there is no survival difference between treatment pathways.

Mutations in hallmark genes are believed to be the main drivers of cancer progression. These mutations are reported in the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC). Structural appreciation of where these mutations appear, in protein–protein interfaces, active sites or deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) interfaces, and predicting the impacts of these mutations using a variety of computational tools are crucial for successful drug discovery and development. Currently, there are 723 genes presented in the COSMIC Cancer Gene Census. Due to the complexity of the gene products, structures of only 87 genes have been solved experimentally with structural coverage between 90% and 100%. Here, we present a comprehensive, user-friendly, web interface (https://cancer-3d.com/) of 714 modelled cancer-related genes, including homo-oligomers, hetero-oligomers, transmembrane proteins and complexes with DNA, ribonucleic acid, ligands and co-factors. Using SDM and mCSM software, we have predicted the impacts of reported mutations on protein stability, protein–protein interfaces affinity and protein–nucleic acid complexes affinity. Furthermore, we also predicted intrinsically disordered regions using DISOPRED3.

We use a convolutional neural network (CNN) to study cosmic string detection in cosmic microwave background (CMB) flat sky maps with Nambu-Goto strings. On noiseless maps we can measure string tensions down to order $10^{-9}$, however when noise is included we are unable to measure string tensions below $10^{-7}$. Motivated by this impasse, we derive an information theoretic bound on the detection of the cosmic string tension $G\mu$ from CMB maps. In particular we bound the information entropy of the posterior distribution of $G\mu$ in terms of the resolution, noise level and total survey area of the CMB map. We evaluate these bounds for the ACT, SPT-3G, Simons Observatory, Cosmic Origins Explorer, and CMB-S4 experiments. These bounds cannot be saturated by any method., Comment: v3: corrected error in table 1 entry for the CORE experiment. This matches the erratum submitted for the version published in MNRAS. 7 pages, 1 figure, 1 table

The resonance scattering of Ly$\alpha$ photons with neutral hydrogen atoms in the intergalactic medium not only couples the spin temperature to the kinetic temperature but also leads to a heating of the gas. We investigate the impact of this heating on the average brightness temperature of the 21-cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn in the context of the claimed detection by the EDGES low-band experiment. We model the evolution of the global signal taking into account the Ly$\alpha$ coupling and heating and a cooling which can be stronger than the Hubble cooling. Using the claimed detection of a strong absorption signal at $z\approx 17$ as a constraint, we find that a strong Ly$\alpha$ background is ruled out. Instead the results favour a weak Ly$\alpha$ background combined with an excess cooling mechanism which is substantially stronger than previously considered. We also show that the cooling mechanism driven by the interaction between millicharged baryons and dark matter particles no longer provides a viable explanation for the EDGES result when Ly$\alpha$ heating is taken into account., Comment: 11 Pages, 6 Figures, 2 Tables, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Cosmic Dawn (CD), when the first stars and proto-galaxies began to form, is commonly expected to be accompanied by an absorption signature at radio frequencies. This feature arises as Lyman α photons emitted by these first luminous objects couple the 21 cm excitation temperature of intergalactic hydrogen gas to its kinetic temperature, driving it into absorption relative to the cosmic microwave background. The detailed properties of this absorption profile encode powerful information about the physics of CD. Recently, Bowman et al. analysed data from the EDGES low-band radio antenna and found an unexpectedly deep absorption profile centred at 78 MHz, which could be a detection of this signature. Their specific analysis fit their measurements using a polynomial foreground model, a flattened Gaussian absorption profile, and a white noise model; we argue that a more accurate model, that includes a detailed noise model and accounting for the effects of plausible calibration errors, is essential for describing the EDGES data set. We perform a Bayesian evidence-based comparison of models of the EDGES low-band data set and find that those incorporating these additional components are decisively preferred. The subset of the best-fitting models of the data that include a global signal favours an amplitude consistent with standard cosmological assumptions (A < 209 mK). However, there is not strong evidence to favour models of the data including a global 21 cm signal over those without one. Ultimately, we find that the derivation of robust constraints on astrophysics from the data is limited by the presence of systematics.

We present the high-mass end of the galaxy stellar mass function using the largest sample to date (5,352) of star-forming galaxies with $M_{\star} > 10^{11} M_{\odot}$ at cosmic noon, $1.5 < z < 3.5$. This sample is uniformly selected across 17.2 deg$^2$ ($\sim$0.44 Gpc$^3$ comoving volume from $1.5 < z < 3.5$), mitigating the effects of cosmic variance and encompassing a wide range of environments. This area, a factor of 10 larger than previous studies, provides robust statistics at the high-mass end. Using multi-wavelength data in the Spitzer/HETDEX Exploratory Large Area (SHELA) footprint we find that the SHELA footprint star-forming galaxy stellar mass function is steeply declining at the high-mass end probing values as high as $\sim$$10^{-4}$ Mpc$^3$/dex and as low as $\sim$5$\times$$10^{-8}$ Mpc$^3$/dex across a stellar mass range of log($M_\star$/$M_\odot$) $\sim$ 11 - 12. We compare our empirical star-forming galaxy stellar mass function at the high mass end to three types of numerical models: hydrodynamical models from IllustrisTNG, abundance matching from the UniverseMachine, and three different semi-analytic models (SAMs; SAG, SAGE, GALACTICUS). At redshifts $1.5 < z < 3.5$ we find that results from IllustrisTNG and abundance matching models agree within a factor of $\sim$2 to 10, however the three SAMs strongly underestimate (up to a factor of 1,000) the number density of massive galaxies. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of galaxy evolution., 19 pages, 10 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

BL Lac objects can be extreme in two ways: with their synchrotron emission, peaking beyond 1 keV in their spectral energy distribution, or with their gamma-ray emission, peaking at multi-TeV energies up to and beyond 10-20 TeV, like 1ES 0229+200. This second type of extreme BL Lacs --which we can name "TeV-peaked BL Lacs" is not well explained by the usual synchrotron self-Compton scenarios for BL Lacs. These sources are also important as probes for the intergalactic diffuse infrared background and cosmic magnetic fields, as well as possible sites of production of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos. However, all these studies are hindered by their still very limited number. Here I propose a new, simple criterium to select the best candidates for TeV observations, specifically aimed at this peculiar type of BL Lac objects by combining X-ray, gamma-ray and infrared data. It is based on the observation of a clustering towards a high X-ray to GeV gamma-ray flux ratio, and it does not rely on the radio flux or X-ray spectrum. This makes it suitable to find TeV-peaked sources also with very faint radio emission. Taking advantage of the Fermi all-sky gamma-ray survey applied to the ROMA-BZCAT and Sedentary Survey samples, I produce an initial list of 47 TeV-peaked candidates for observations with present and future air-Cherenkov telescopes., 9 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The existence of cosmic superstrings may be probed by astronomical time domain surveys. When crossing the line of sight to point-like sources, strings produce a distinctive microlensing signature. We consider two avenues to hunt for a relic population of superstring loops: frequent monitoring of (1) stars in Andromeda, lensed by loops in the haloes of the Milky-Way and Andromeda and (2) supernovae at cosmological distances, lensed by loops in the intergalactic medium. We assess the potential of such experiments to detect and/or constrain strings with a range of tensions, $10^{-15} \lesssim G \mu/c^2 \lesssim 10^{-6}$. The practical sensitivity is tied to cadence of observations which we explore in detail. We forecast that high-cadence monitoring of $\sim 10^5$ stars on the far side of Andromeda over a year-long period will detect microlensing events if $G\mu/c^2 \sim 10^{-13}$, while $\sim 10^6$ stars will detect events if $10^{-13.5}, Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures + appendix. Main results summarised in Fig. 5; notation clarification & minor revisions w.r.t. v1 -- accepted for publication by MNRAS

We present the X-ray analysis of the largest flux-limited complete sample of blazar candidates at z>4 selected from the Cosmic Lens All Sky Survey (CLASS). After obtaining a nearly complete (24/25) X-ray coverage of the sample (from Swift-XRT, XMM-Newton and Chandra), we analysed the spectra in order to identify the bona-fide blazars. We classified the sources based on the shape of their Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) and, in particular, on the flatness of the X-ray emission and its intensity compared to the optical one. We then compared these high-z blazars with a blazar sample selected at lower redshifts (z~1). We found a significant difference in the X-ray-to-radio luminosity ratios, with the CLASS blazars having a mean ratio 2.4+/-0.5 times larger than low-z blazars. We tentatively interpret this evolution as due to the interaction of the electrons of the jet with the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photons, which is expected to boost the observed X-ray emission at high redshifts. Such a dependence has been already observed in highly radio-loud AGNs in the recent literature. This is the first time it is observed using a statistically complete radio flux limited sample of blazars. We have then evaluated whether this effect could explain the differences in the cosmological evolution recently found between radio and X-ray selected samples of blazars. We found that the simple version of this model is not able to solve the tension between the two evolutionary results., Comment: 15 pages, 30 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We examine the relationship between a number of long gamma-ray burst (lGRB) properties (isotropic emitted energy, luminosity, intrinsic duration, jet opening angle) and redshift. We find that even when accounting for conservative detector flux limits, there appears to be a significant correlation between isotropic equivalent energy and redshift, suggesting cosmological evolution of the lGRB progenitor. Analyzing a sub-sample of lGRBs with jet opening angle estimates, we find the beaming-corrected lGRB emitted energy does not correlate with redshift, but jet opening angle does. Additionally, we find a statistically significant anti-correlation between the intrinsic prompt duration and redshift, even when accounting for potential selection effects. We also find that - for a given redshift - isotropic energy is positively correlated with intrinsic prompt duration. None of these GRB properties appear to be correlated with galactic offset. From our selection-effect-corrected redshift distribution, we estimate a co-moving rate density for lGRBs, and compare this to the global cosmic star formation rate (SFR). We find the lGRB rate mildly exceeds the global star formation rate between a redshift of 3 and 5, and declines rapidly at redshifts above this (although we cannot constrain the lGRB rate above a redshift of about 6 due to sample incompleteness). We find the lGRB rate diverges significantly from the SFR at lower redshifts. We discuss both the correlations and lGRB rate density in terms of various lGRB progenitor models and their apparent preference for low-metallicity environments., Comment: Accepted to MNRAS

Cosmic voids are the major volume component in the matter distribution of the Universe. They posses great potential for constraining dark energy as well as for testing theories of gravity. Nevertheless, in spite of their growing popularity as cosmological probes, a gap of knowledge between cosmic void observations and theory still persists. In particular, the void size function models proposed in literature have been proven unsuccessful in reproducing the results obtained from cosmological simulations in which cosmic voids are detected from biased tracers of the density field, undermining the possibility of using them as cosmological probes. The goal of this work is to cover this gap. In particular, we make use of the findings of a previous work in which we have improved the void selection procedure, presenting an algorithm that redefines the void ridges and, consequently, their radius. By applying this algorithm, we validate the volume conserving model of the void size function on a set of unbiased simulated density field tracers. We highlight the difference in the internal structure between voids selected in this way and those identified by the popular VIDE void finder. We also extend the validation of the model to the case of biased tracers. We find that a relation exists between the tracer used to sample the underlying dark matter density field and its unbiased counterpart. Moreover, we demonstrate that, as long as this relation is accounted for, the size function is a viable approach for studying cosmology with cosmic voids., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, submitted to MNRAS

We present a weak lensing analysis of the 3 GHz VLA radio survey of the COSMOS field, which we correlate with overlapping HST-ACS optical observations using both intrinsic galaxy shape and cosmic shear correlation statistics. After cross-matching sources between the two catalogues, we measure the correlations of galaxy position angles and find a Pearson correlation coefficient of $0.14 \pm 0.03$. This is a marked improvement from previous studies which found very weak, or non-existent correlations, and gives insight into the emission processes of radio and optical galaxies. We also extract power spectra of averaged galaxy ellipticities (the primary observable for cosmic shear) from the two catalogues, and produce optical-optical, radio-optical and radio-radio spectra. The optical-optical auto-power spectrum was measured to a detection significance of 9.80$\sigma$ and is consistent with previous observations of the same field. For radio spectra (which we do not calibrate, given the unknown nature of their systematics), although we do not detect significant radio-optical (1.50$\sigma$) or radio-radio (1.45$\sigma$) $E$-mode power spectra, we do find the $E$-mode spectra to be more consistent with the shear signal expected from previous studies than with a null signal, and vice versa for $B$-mode and $EB$ cross-correlation spectra. Our results give promise that future radio weak lensing surveys with larger source number densities over larger areas will have the capability to measure significant weak lensing signals., Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We study the luminosity function and formation rate of long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) by using a maximum likelihood method. This is the first time this method is applied to a well-defined sample of GRBs that is complete in redshift. The sample is composed of 99 bursts detected by the $Swift$ satellite, 81 of them with measured redshift and luminosity for a completeness level of $82\%$. We confirm that a strong redshift evolution in luminosity (with an evolution index of $\delta=2.22^{+0.32}_{-0.31}$) or in density ($\delta=1.92^{+0.20}_{-0.21}$) is needed in order to reproduce the observations well. But since the predicted redshift and luminosity distributions in the two scenarios are very similar, it is difficult to distinguish between these two kinds of evolutions only on the basis of the current sample. Furthermore, we also consider an empirical density case in which the GRB rate density is directly described as a broken power-law function and the luminosity function is taken to be non-evolving. In this case, we find that the GRB formation rate rises like $(1+z)^{3.85^{+0.48}_{-0.45}}$ for $z\leq2$ and is proportional to $(1+z)^{-1.07^{+0.98}_{-1.12}}$ for $z\geq2$. The local GRB rate is $1.49^{+0.63}_{-0.64}$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$. The GRB rate may be consistent with the cosmic star formation rate (SFR) at $z\leq2$, but shows an enhancement compared to the SFR at $z\geq2$., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Using a spectral stacking technique, we measure the neutral hydrogen (HI) properties of a sample of galaxies at $z < 0.11$ across 35 pointings of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT). The radio data contains 1,895 galaxies with redshifts and positions known from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We carefully quantified the effects of sample bias, aperture used to extract spectra, sidelobes and weighting technique and use our data to provide a new estimate for the cosmic HI mass density. We find a cosmic HI mass density of $\Omega_{\rm HI} = (4.02 \pm 0.26)\times 10^{-4} h_{70}^{-1}$ at $\langle z\rangle = 0.066$, consistent with measurements from blind HI surveys and other HI stacking experiments at low redshifts. The combination of the small interferometer beam size and the large survey volume makes our result highly robust against systematic effects due to confusion at small scales and cosmic variance at large scales. Splitting into three sub-samples with $\langle z\rangle$ = 0.038, 0.067 and 0.093 shows no significant evolution of the HI gas content at low redshift., Comment: 17 pages, 24 figures

We probe the angular scale of homogeneity in the local Universe using blue galaxies from the SDSS survey as a cosmological tracer. Through the scaled counts in spherical caps, $ \mathcal{N}(, Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Modifications of the matter power spectrum due to baryonic physics are one of the major theoretical uncertainties in cosmological weak lensing measurements. Developing robust mitigation schemes for this source of systematic uncertainty increases the robustness of cosmological constraints, and may increase their precision if they enable the use of information from smaller scales. Here we explore the performance of two mitigation schemes for baryonic effects in weak lensing cosmic shear: the PCA method and the halo-model approach in \textsc{HMcode}. We construct mock tomographic shear power spectra from four hydrodynamical simulations, and run simulated likelihood analyses with \textsc{CosmoLike} assuming LSST-like survey statistics. With an angular scale cut of $\ell_{\rm max} 10\ h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$. We investigate variants of the PCA method and improve the bias mitigation through PCA by accounting for the noise properties in the data via Cholesky decomposition of the covariance matrix. Our improved PCA method allows us to retain more statistical constraining power while effectively mitigating baryonic uncertainties even for a broad range of baryonic physics scenarios., 29 pages, 19 figures, accepted to MNRAS

We compute the expected cosmic rates of tidal disruption events induced by individual massive black holes (MBHs) and by MBH binaries (MBHBs) - with a specific focus on the latter class - to explore the potential of TDEs to probe the cosmic population of sub-pc MBHBs. Rates are computed by combining MBH and MBHB population models derived from large cosmological simulations with estimates of the induced TDE rates for each class of objects. We construct empirical TDE spectra that fit a large number of observations in the optical, UV and X-ray and consider their observability by current and future survey instruments. Consistent with results in the literature, and depending on the detailed assumption of the model, we find that LSST and Gaia in optical and eROSITA in X-ray will observe a total of 3000-6000, 80-180 and 600-900 TDEs per year, respectively. Depending on the survey, one to several percent of these are prompted by MBHBs. In particular both LSST and eROSITA are expected to see 150-450 MBHB induced TDEs in their respective mission lifetimes, including 5-100 repeated flares. The latter provide an observational sample of binary candidates with relatively low contamination and have the potential of unveiling the sub-pc population of MBHBs in the mass range $10^5M_\odot, Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Cosmogenic neutrinos originate from interactions of cosmic rays propagating through the universe with cosmic background photons. Since both high-energy cosmic rays and cosmic background photons exist, the existence of high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos is certain. However, their flux has not been measured so far. Therefore, we calculated the flux of high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos arriving at the Earth on the basis of elaborate 4D simulations that take into account three spatial degrees of freedom and the cosmological time-evolution of the universe. Our predictions for this neutrino flux are consistent with the recent upper limits obtained from large-scale cosmic-ray experiments. We also show that the extragalactic magnetic field has a strong influence on the neutrino flux. The results of this work are important for the design of future neutrino observatories, since they allow to assess the detector volume and observation time that are necessary to detect high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos in the near future. An observation of such neutrinos would push multimessenger astronomy to hitherto unachieved energy scales.